As a teacher I use forms for quizzes, group projects and school fundraisers.

As a principal I use forms for staff surveys, course selections, and quarterly grade reports.

As a small business owner I use forms to set follow up reminders, send out invoices, PD certificates, and organize events.

In this episode I am sharing five ways that you can design better Google Forms!

Use validation to collect better data

Make your forms look pretty

Automate with Add-ons

Filter, Sort, and Pivot your data

Auto-grade and lock your quizzes

Are you ready to become a Form Fanatic?

Each spring I teach a 5 week Google Forms masterclass through Google Classroom. This course is for anyone who is familiar with forms and is ready to become a form master!

Last spring I offered this course for the first time and the feedback was outstanding:

"I was a casual user of Forms, but I was not using the data that I had collected to it's full potential. Now I am writing better Forms so my data is of higher quality and I am better able to analyze the results so I'm making decisions based on data...not just giving surveys." - Laura Foreback, middle school teacher

This course is perfect for classroom teachers, tech coaches, and school administrators!

Audio projects aren’t as common as image or video projects, but that doesn’t mean that audio isn’t a great option! Because they lack a visual element, audio projects are easier to create and require more attention to the core content of the assignment.

Over the past 50 years, Bob Gregory has been a school teacher, a church pastor, a school principal and an education resource supplier in Australia and around the South Pacific region. He officially retired in 2015 and in 2016 became the education manager forTransform Cambodia, an NGO dedicated to helping the children of Cambodia escape poverty.

In this episode you'll hear how Chromebooks are being used to give hope to more than 3,000 Children in Cambodia.

Note: As of December 6, 2018 the locked quiz feature is only available to a small number beta testers. I anticipate that locked quizzes will become available to all G Suite for Education users in January 2019.

This is one of the topics that I discuss with Andy Losik, elementary STEM teacher, during this episode of the Chromebook Classroom Podcast!

Andy Losik (@mrlosik) is a PK-5 STEM teacher at Hamilton Schools in west Michigan. Andy has a rich background as a classroom teacher and technology expert. He is an Apple Distinguished educator, Google Certified innovator and Discover Education Programs Champion, and helpful guy.

Eric Marcos has been helping students create instructional math videos since 2007. These amazing (and entertaining) videos have been watched by more than 1.6 million students and teachers from around the world.

Eric teaches in Santa Monica, California and also runs mathtrain.tv where you can find all of his videos.

Visit chrmbook.com/podcast for links, resources, and tools mentioned in this episode of the Chromebook Classroom Podcast.

How do you help teachers develop new skills and grow as professionals?

Andrea Derrick has developed an impressive digital learning program to encourage the staff in her district to develop new skills. This comprehensive, detailed program helps teachers regardless of whether they are just starting to use technology in the classroom or are an advanced user.

Chromebook web filtering is should mean more than just blocking bad websites. Bharath Madhusudan, co-founder of the web filtering company Securly, shares how his company is working to keep kids safe on the web by using machine learning and natural language processing to prevent cyber bullying and self-harm.

How do you teach world language in the age of Google Translate? Bethany Thompson (@bthompsonEDU) began teaching French 19 years ago. She has personally observed the impact that technology has had on the classroom. These challenges and opportunities aren’t unique to world language, however. They also impact math and many other subject area. This conversation is filled with practical ideas for embracing change and challenge students to be critical thinkers.

When you listen to my conversation with Bethany, I think you will be impressed by some of the creative, non-traditional ways she is using common tools like Google Docs, Presentation, and Google Forms. She isn't using lots of language-specific apps and extensions. Instead, she is applying readily accessble products in some creative ways.

Visit chrmbook.com/podcast to download a copy of Bethany's accent shortcut cheat-sheet for Chromebooks!

We’re heading across Atlantic ocean today to learn how Chromebooks are being used in the United Kingdom! My guest is Mark Allen, a long time IT director and technology specialists who has worked with hundreds of schools in England.

Mark and I discuss many things including the pros and cons of requiring all students to learn how to code, concern over Google’s data collection practices, and strategies for encouraging schools and teachers to adapt to new technologies and teaching tools.

It’s always interesting to hear perspectives from different countries and cultures. That certainly emerges during my conversation with Mark.

In an effort to better understand the specific challenges and needs of teachers, administrators, and instructional coaches, I created a survey and asked for specific feedback on challenges related to implementing technology into the classroom.

In this episode of the podcast I am sharing the final results of the survey.

My challenge to you is to take this information and begin thinking about what you can do to remove these barriers in your school.

Chromebooks are great for classroom learning, but why stop there? Fairview Independent Schools in eastern Kentucky created the student technology leadership program to give students an opportunity to learn how to service and support technology use within the district. In this episode I am joined by Corey Moore (@mrmoorefhs), director of the student help desk program. Corey shares insights on the Fairview 1:1 program and tips on how to start your student Chromebook repair program. We are also joined by Tori and Ali, two high school students on the help desk team who share what it’s like to support classroom teachers and make Chromebook repairs.

Visit chrmbook.com/podcast for a resources that will help you start a student help-desk and Chromebook repair program!

Make learning active by asking students to demonstrate their learning by designing a multimedia project. Not only are they fun to create, they can be easily shared within your class or school community. In this episode I share my top recommendations for working with images, audio recordings, and video using a Chromebook

The makerspace movement is focused on learning through creation. But how do Chromebooks fit into your makerspace? The Nerdy Teacher, Nick Provenzano, shares his thoughts on using Chromebooks for coding, 3D printing and more! Plus, Nick shares the new badge program he is developing for middle school students.

Visit chrmbook.com/podcast for a copy of the 10 most popular Chrome Unboxed articles and other links mentioned in this episode.

My guest is Gabriel Brangers, co-founder of Chrome Unboxed - arguably the top resource for ChromeOS related news on the internet.

Gabriel has been called the “Sherlock Holmes” of Chromebooks because he explores the deep reaches of the open source Chromium code repository looking for clues about what Google developers are working on for the next generation of Chromebooks. Gabriel explains the testing process and shares how you can help test new features by switching to the Chromebook beta channel.

Visit chrmbook.com/podcast for a copy of the 10 most popular Chrome Unboxed articles and other links mentioned in this episode.

Season 2 of The Chromebook Classroom podcast will introduce you to another set of awesome people who have fresh ideas about using technology in education. My goal is to bring you modern ideas from a variety of perspectives: from both in and outside of the classroom, from across the US and the world, from teachers, students, administrators, and companies that support the use of Chromebooks in the classroom.

The first episode of season 2 will be available on October 1, 2017. Subscribe to the show via iTunes or Stitcher to be notified of new episodes as they come out.

This podcast was created to highlight how Chromebooks are impacting education around the world. Season 1 features six episodes with interviews with the head of Chromebooks for Education, a tech director from Ohio, an elementary teacher who figured out how to get 5 year olds to enter their password correctly, a energetic college professor, a tech integration specialist who helped his teachers migrate from iPads to Chromebooks, and a middle school teacher who uses Chromebooks for project based learning. It’s a full season!

You, dear listener, have a strong impact on the future of this podcast. Will there be a season 2? That is up to you! If you enjoy this podcast, please take a moment to rate it on iTunes or Google play or visit chrmbook.com/podcast to vote for season 2.

This is my interview with Cyrus Mistry, Group Product Manager, Android & Chromebooks for Education. Cyrus is in charge of managing the Chromebook for Education team at Google. His early efforts helped the first round of Chromebooks to schools which provided to be amazingly successful. Today, over 50% of devices used in Schools are Chromebooks.

How do you protect and repair your Chromebook? My interview with Eric Griffith from Mechanicsburg schools in Ohio discusses key strategies for ensuring that your Chromebooks withstand the stress of the school environment. We also discuss the merits of on-site Chromebook repair.

This wide-ranging conversation with Elliot Soloway, Professor of education, engineering and information at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor was fun. Elliot is a passionate and insightful technologist and researcher who shares how we can collaborate with technology to solve hard problems.

Elementary students CAN use technology! Jolanda Nederveld is an elementary teacher at Oriole Park elementary school in Wyoming, Michigan who teaches technology and media to grades K-4. Jolanda shares how Chromebooks in Elementary classrooms can provide marvelous learning opportunities and sets students up for future success.